CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Aperson should be allowed to enjoy lunch. It should be an unstated law: Lunch hour is to be enjoyed. Add that as commandment eleven, and Vicky would willingly stay chained the rest of the year. Despite Joshua, this was a good day. And I was going to enjoy the rest.

Coke from Jake’s for lunch was the only thought on my brain. Until I got the Coke . Then the thought of food began to cross my mind. I opened up the refrigerator to see if Richard or the twins had brought anything desirable from home. Only the aluminum wrapper of two cold-hearted steaks caught my eye.

I closed the refrigerator and stared at my hand that held the handle. Then I opened it again. Snatched the steaks out of the refrigerator, laid one in Duke’s bowl, and took the other one along with the morning paper and my Coke to the park bench directly across from the coffee shop. A raised hand was all I offered those who greeted me as I passed.

As I sat down, a tune caught my ear, and my new bench buddy caught the corner of my eye. I hid my steak beneath my paper.

“Savannah, I had no idea I had met a star.”

“Good morning, Joy . You haven’t been walking into any more streets, have you?”

Her floral belly shook. But her hair looked neatly combed. She sat down on the bench, oblivious to the fact that I was about to have a moment to myself.

“You wrote a nice piece, Savannah.”

“Actually I was just about—”

“But it wasn’t clear what you really think about what is happening.” She pulled an orange out of her purse and began to peel it.

“It’s not really about what I feel. It’s more about what I observe through the lives of others.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, stories are about what interests people. I try to tell others’ stories.”

She continued to peel and never looked up. “Well, you told other people’s stories all right . Your poor mother hasn’t smiled all morning. And that tall, beautiful, but extremely loquacious girl that follows her around carrying a tiara didn’t fare too well either. And pity the people who were in their company this morning.”

I stopped and looked at her. She apparently needed me to help educate her on what newspaper reporters actually do.“I just tell it like life lives it.”

“But isn’t life really about how events affect us and change us?”

“Yes, life is, but not necessarily human-interest stories.”

“So, you don’t want your stories to change people?”

“Well, yes, that is the intent of all my stories . That was why I wanted this job. Because the lady who did this before me . . .” I paused for a moment and thought of Gloria Richardson, who had held this position prior to my arrival . The brief time that had transpired since Gloria’s death and my first day on the job blew by me and came to rest inside my thoughts. I looked down at the paper lying on my lap and my picture staring back at me in the same place Gloria’s had through my six years of college and graduate school.“Yeah, my stories should change people,” I muttered.

Joy put a piece of orange in her mouth and chewed slowly. She wouldn’t speak until every morsel was dissolved. She was a lady that way. Forcing me to wait.

“Well, if you want your stories to change people, then they first have to change you . Your story was witty and charming. But it didn’t say anything . You just told me what I can come down here and see for myself. See, I need you to tell me the things I don’t notice. I need you to reveal to me what I’ve missed myself.” She stopped for a moment and that distant look took over her face again as she stared at the large group of people that still surrounded the monument and my mother.

“All this, Savannah”—she motioned across the street—“This hasn’t changed you, Savannah; it’s just annoyed you.”Well, I would beg to differ; she was the one to annoy me. She must have read it in my face. “Now, don’t get mad at me, baby. I’ve grown fond of you. But take it from an old lady: Living should change you. It shouldn’t leave you apathetic or annoyed, or dare I say, cynical.” Apparently she dared. “It should leave you changed. I’m not even sure this event has changed this city yet either. So far it’s just transpired in the middle of it. But everyone will be changed before it’s over. I guarantee you that.”

“Changed, huh?”

She wrapped up her peeling inside a napkin and stuffed it in her purse . Then her black eyes looked up at me to make sure I was listening.“Yes, but you can’t be changed until you know what you believe, Savannah.” She knew I was listening.

She bent over and tugged at her drooping stockings before she stood. She pulled her dress down as she rose and took her tired straw bag in her hand . Those eyes looked straight into my soul and refused to look away without one final parting Joy thought.“Yeah, you need to figure out what you believe, Savannah. But it’s even more important to know why you believe it.”With that she left to greet a news reporter camped out underneath a nearby tree. Wonder what he needed to change.

I stood up and threw the steak away, because I had lost my appetite. I tucked the paper underneath my arm. I had no need to read it. Joy had just made it clear what it said. A bunch of nothing.

I would have returned to Jake’s, but the memories were simply too painful at this time. I had no desire to enter the newspaper either. Entering meant interacting, and I was downright tired of interacting. Didn’t care if I saw another woman carrying snacks in her purse or another curly-headed coworker.

I flung the newspaper onto the passenger’s seat. The front page unfolded, and staring back at me was a beautiful young woman with long flaxen hair and breathtaking green eyes. Next to her, the picture of a nice-looking boy with hair close to the same color. Both looked to be in their late teens, early twenties. The headline declared, “Local Beauty Queen Arrested for Alleged Murder of Boyfriend.”

I had forgotten. Over a nonexistent dinner with a hopelessly former love, and then a morning of enjoying my own weak press, I had forgotten. Life was supposed to have been altered forever by yesterday’s events. I had declared it myself. But life happened, just like always. I had dressed myself up, bought dinner, gotten dumped and then humiliated, and spent the evening mentally trashing a woman I didn’t even know. And this morning I had debated over heels or flip-flops, bought a Coke, got puffed up, and then had my balloon popped by a practical stranger, all while worlds just around the corner had stopped.

My selfishness and shallowness slammed into me and stuck like a stretched flower around Ms. Joy’s upper thigh. It was what it was.

Not one for avoiding confrontation, confronting myself seemed far less desirable.

So much for avoiding interaction. Because interaction didn’t care a thing about avoiding me. It greeted me at the front desk. It greeted me rounding the first corner. It greeted me even in my little Styrofoam world.

“Oh, Savannah. I’m so glad you finally got here. I just need you. I’m having nightmares. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep.” Miss Amber Topaz was pacing. And if she wasn’t careful, she would run right into my Styrofoam wall.

I knew why she was really here. I was certain that this whole thing was nothing more than a brouhaha to see Joshua. She was in love with him. I still wasn’t quite sure if that was because she really liked him or because she saw him as the shortest distance between her and the title of Mrs. United States of America. And since her discovery that his desk was perched directly across from my own, I could never assume her visits were simply to see me. No, her dropping by would be for one reason alone: to run into Mr. Bike Boy. I was no fool. Maybe a witless wonder, but not a fool.

Then she started to cry.Well, maybe she is here to see me.

“Oh my, I think I’m going to hyperventilate.” She collapsed into the chair by my small orifice that would have been a door had a person been privileged enough to have an office with a door. “I might need mouth to mouth.” I was certain she peeked across the corridor.

I grabbed my chair, pulled it up next to her, and sat down. “Amber, get a grip or I’m going to have to slap you.”

That got her attention.“Why would you slap me?” She sniffled.

“Because that’s what people do to people who act hysterical. Now, what in the world is going on?”

“It’s just yesterday, Savannah. The whole thing. The body, the police, Miss Chatham County United States of America in handcuffs. I even went to see her!” she wailed.

That one got me.“You did? What did she say?”

“Oh,” she said, blowing her nose and trying to gain her composure. “I couldn’t go in. A guard wanted to search me . Well, my Lord have mercy, Savannah.” She sat upright in her chair and straightened the skirt of her teal sundress.“I’ve never had a man touch me in such places in my life, and I wasn’t about to have the first time happen by a complete stranger in a jail, now, was I? No, I’m waiting for Mr .North when he makes me Mrs. North and,well, let the party be—”

“Please!”This child was crazier than I.“You and Joshua getting married isn’t even a present reality. Stick to the facts. So, you didn’t go see her?”

“No, I just couldn’t.” She started tearing up again. “But I’m going to. I just want you to go with me. I neeeeeeeed yooooooou, Savannah.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and threw her head down in sobs.

Her head was bobbing from her heaves. I removed her arms from my neck.“How is it you are so hysterical today, when I heard you were back outside with my mother last night trying to do Pilates again?”

She cocked her head at me as if that was the dumbest question she had heard since the mayor emceed the Miss Georgia United States of America and asked her to tell why she should be the next Miss Georgia United States of America. Shouldn’t the answer be piercingly obvious? “Savannah, I called your mother last night because I was in such a mess. She asked me to come spend the night with her, and she spent our entire dinner encouraging me and giving me advice, and then she held me while I criiiiiiiied.” She started blubbering again.

“My mother did all that?”

“Yes . Then she had me laughing, telling me crazy stories about when she was young, and before I knew it I was showing her more Pilates moves. It’s not like I just walked up and said, ‘Okay sunshine, let me teach you some Pilates.’ I mean, please, Savannah, I’m not totally callous.”

Ooh, right word. Right way.“Well, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just assumed.”

“It’s okay.” She grabbed a tissue and snorted loud enough to alert the Atlantic’s ships of fog.“Your mother’s really special, Savannah. I’m not even her daughter and she makes me feel like I am . You should be nicer to her.”

But before I could respond, the sound of a familiar voice came up the hall. I stood up and peeked around the corner. Ms. Faith Austin was walking down the hall, accompanied by Mr. Hicks’s “charming” secretary once again. Looking down at Amber’s lovely dress in teal, it became clear to me that she was too . . . well, too teal. But I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to speak.

“Hello Faith . What has you at the paper so long today?” I asked as they walked past my door, clearly on their way to the elevator.

Jessica would not let the poor woman speak. “Savannah, Ms. Austin and I are in an extended meeting with Mr. Hicks, and we don’t have time for chatting.”

Faith stopped anyway. “Oh, Mr. Hicks and I are just going to wrap up our interview from this morning.”

“Well, I hope it has gone well.”

Amber blew once more. “Oh, excuse me. This is Amber. Uh, my friend.” I tried not to wince from the pain of the proclamation.

“Nice to meet you, uh,Amber,” Ms. Austin offered.

“We really need to be going,” Jessica snipped.

Amber ignored her. “Well, hello. I’m Amber Topaz Childers. I’ve seen you, haven’t I? Down there at the monument.”

“Yes, I have work I’m doing down there.”

“Well, I hope it goes well . You just let Ms . Victoria know if you need a thing . That lady would do anything for anyone . Well, ladies, I need to skedaddle . Have to sort out some things down at the visitors center . We have some issues with this group out of Atlanta, AFUCLA or something. Probably a bunch of sorority girls trying to stir up the dickens . Well, gotta run. Nice to meet you. And you too, little one. Whatever your name is.” I thought for a moment the six-foot Amazon Amber might actually pat Jessica on the head.

“Bye,Amber. I’ll talk to you soon . We’ll figure something out.”

“I know . You always do.” And with that her teal skirt reflected fluorescently off of the drab gray carpet and white walls until she safely turned the corner.

Jessica chimed in first. “What an idiot.” She flung her hair around.

“She’s not an idiot, Jessica.”

“Sounded like you thought she was even in your own column today,” she sneered.

“You missed the point.”

“No you missed a point.” She took Ms. Austin’s arm and they continued to the elevator. Ms. Austin turned back with a wink. I had nothing to offer in return . Therein lay the whole problem.